


A Hot Bath

by Illegible_Scribble



Series: 31 Days of Frodo/Sam, 2018 [24]
Category: The Lord of the Rings (Movies), The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Bath Sex, Established Relationship, Fluff and Smut, Hand Jobs, Kinktober 2018, M/M, Minas Tirth, Post-Quest, Smoochtober 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2018-10-24
Packaged: 2019-08-07 03:16:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16400303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Illegible_Scribble/pseuds/Illegible_Scribble
Summary: Closely following their awakening in Minas Tirith - after the destruction of the Ring - Frodo and Sam delight to share in something neither of them have had for months: a hot bath.





	A Hot Bath

**Author's Note:**

> Based on [this prompt](https://www.pillowfort.io/posts/132744) for Smoochtober 2018, #24: Lazy Kiss, and [this prompt](https://www.pillowfort.io/posts/112710) for Kinktober, Day #24: Shower (or in this case, Bath).

It was certainly the largest tub the hobbits had ever seen. Rivendell had one large bathing pool sourced by a hot spring, but that had been nearer to a pond, even, though it was lined with stones. This was an individual, free-standing tub – made for Men, and so about half as big again as the bathtubs back in the Shire. A sturdy stepstool had been placed before it, to help them in and out of it.

“Won't even need to fill it more than halfway, I'm thinking,” said Sam, peering over the edge into the basin. “Shall I start drawing it?”

Frodo's eye had wandered to the well-stocked shelves of bathing oil and soaps against the far wall, still feeling a bit out of sorts and surprised at being alive. His answer was delayed, as he first had to pull himself out of his thoughts. “Hm? Oh, yes; that would be lovely. Thank you.”

Sam nodded, plugging the drain and turning on the tap. In wealthier smials, indoor plumbing was far from unusual, but Frodo was grateful for it all over again, after... oh, it must've been at least half a year they'd done without, making the prospect of a steaming bath was delightful. He felt almost as though he'd forgotten what it was like, to _soak_ for as long as he liked, free from worries or fears.

Even safe now in Minas Tirith as they were, he wondered if he really was free of worries or fears.

He tried not to look at his missing finger.

As the tub provided a relative roar as it filled, they stepped partway out of the bathroom to speak, Sam blushing from more than the rising steam. “Ehm, if you was still up for sharing the bath...”

Over the course of their travels, it had been almost an inevitability the boundaries between master and servant would disappear between them. Before they'd even left Bag End, they'd played at times with shy kisses and offering one another flowers, but in the days that followed their arrival in Rivendell, the last and largest line between them vanished. Ever after, they comforted one another as best they could through everything, with what words and touches they could offer.

Frodo didn't know what he would've done through their journey without his Sam, and he was immeasurably grateful their bond had not shrunk to something more removed and 'proper' now that the Quest was fulfilled. “As long as you'd still like to share it.” he replied, taking Sam's nearer hand with his own. “I can't think why I wouldn't like to bathe with you.”

Sam dragged the sleeve of his bathrobe across his eyes, a watery smile on his lips. “Just wanting to make sure I weren't a bother.”

Frodo placed a soft kiss against his cheek, which was warm from the steam and his blush. “Never. In fact, I shan't think a bath complete any longer, unless we share it.”

Sam burbled something abashed and delighted, and they spent the next few moments nuzzling and caressing one another's hair and hands. They broke apart as the echoes of the water in the tub became deeper, and Sam went to ease off on the hot water, and begin mixing in a bit of cool.

“Would you like to play about with any of the oils?” Frodo asked meanwhile, initially causing Sam to look at him with flushed indigence, before he realized Frodo meant only to scent the bath (for the moment).

“O-oh, aye, that would be fine. What're some of the ones they've got?”

Frodo stepped nearer to the sizable shelf, and began scanning labels. “Primarily flower scents,” he replied, “jasmine, lavender, rose; they also have things like vanilla and peaches. And even... forest pine and mint.” Miffed as he was by the latter scents, Frodo's gaze wandered back up to the flower-scented oils, and his jaw fell open. “Oh.” he breathed.

Sam had turned off the tap, and looked up questioningly at Frodo's sudden silence. “Eh?” he prompted.

Frodo took down the bottle with shaking hands, and traced the label with his fingers. “Primula.” he murmured.

It took Sam a moment to understand, but even before that he was already moving to Frodo's side. “I'm sorry,” was all he could think to say, placing a gentle hand on Frodo's arm. He had never met Frodo's parents, and Frodo did not speak of them often, but he knew the love between them all had been great.

“It's all right.” Frodo said at length, smiling bravely as he placed the bottle back on the shelf. “I only wonder what she and Da would think of me, now.”

“At least as much as the likes of Gandalf and Strider do, I should think.” As much as Frodo might have liked to object aloud, there was nothing far-reaching about Sam's words. Aragorn and Gandalf had spoken with them when they first woke up, and among other things they had relayed their reverence and gratitude for the feats he and Sam had accomplished – and Frodo knew they wouldn't lie. He knew also his parents had treasured him, and even if they would never have all together understood what had happened to him, their pride in him would perhaps have surpassed that of the wizard and the king's.

“It is a nice thought.” he managed at last, a smile curling his mouth. At length, he sighed, letting go of the past to consider again another time. “Well, of all of these, do any appeal to you particularly?”

In the end, the work of picking and choosing between various oils, soaps and shampoos was actually great fun. What their choices for oil (vanilla, lavender and two drops of peach) ultimately culminated in, was – besides making it smell quite nice – turning the bathwater faintly purple.

After they'd finished concocting the scents of their bath, Sam stepped into it first, relaying as he slowly sat down that it was just on the line between 'too hot' and 'almost too hot', and some moments after he settled, he shyly gestured for Frodo to join him.

Frodo supposed Sam hadn't expected that his first choice of position would be to settle between Sam's legs, back-to-chest – but after his initial surprise, Sam wrapped his arms around Frodo's middle, and pulled him close, nosing his hair.

For a long while, as Frodo adjusted to the temperature of the water, they simply soaked. As Frodo had hoped it would be, it was _wonderful_. The warmest he could remember being in weeks, even if the aroma was a bit sweet and heady. It felt rather as though warm honey were soaking in to each of his limbs – and though they had healed from their weariness in the two weeks of rest Gandalf and Aragorn had told them about, there was something wonderfully therapeutic about it, all the same. It felt almost as though he was melting, but from bliss of warmth, so he might dissipate into the water, free-floating and at utter peace.

Cuddled up against Sam's chest as he was, he even began to doze a little, until he felt his beloved pillow beginning to shift underneath him, reaching for the shampoos they'd chosen and asking if Frodo might like to start with the bathing part of their bath.

“Yes, I suppose,” he remarked amiably, sitting up and stretching, “but if we began to call them 'soaks' instead, there would be much less expectation of what effort we'd need to put into one.”

“Lot of trouble to go changing the name, now,” Sam remarked, lathering Frodo's hair white with shampoo, “most soaks turn into baths after a while, hm? And I don't know many that go to so much trouble and water for just a soak, and not a bathe while they can.”

Frodo rumbled pleasantly in his throat as Sam massaged his scalp. “As you like, Samwise,” he said after a time, turning his head this way and that like a cat, squirming with pleasure at the touch. When it came time to rinse, the sensation of warm water running over his scalp was almost alien, it had gone so long unfelt and nearly forgotten, but he enjoyed its re-discovery immensely.

It was difficult for him to pinpoint what he liked best about all of it, from the scalp-rubs to then his back, for Sam's hands were as strong and gentle as ever, working each and every muscle with incredible care.

As Sam's hands worked lower, and an ill thought crossed his mind, to himself, he mourned the fact that Sam could not so easily calm the workings of his thoughts. “Does it look very bad?” he asked, as his back was being washed off.

Sam for a moment did not respond, taken aback by the question, before Frodo felt a gentle touch tracing a line along his back. “From the whip?”

“Yes- I... what does it look like?” Frodo had not the heart to struggle to turn and look over his own shoulder, down at the whip-weal. The skin had broken open when it was struck, and for the last gasp of the Quest, would not close, draining blood and puss constantly, to Frodo's torment. The only thing that had lessened it was the comparative weight of the Ring, or his finger when--

“It's just a white line.” Sam interrupted his thoughts, tapping a spot near Frodo's right shoulderblade and then another above the back of his left hip, before running a finger between them, tracing the scar. “There's dots around it from stitches, I reckon, but it's all closed neat. Can hardly tell it's there without looking for it.”

Frodo was not all together certain he believed Sam's latter claim, but he relaxed back into his touch nevertheless. It had been a relief to wake without it hurting him – in fact it took him some minutes to even think of it, after they'd begun to speak with Gandalf and Aragorn – but it was perhaps a bigger burden off his mind to know it wasn't terribly distinct nor gruesome. “Thank you.”

Sam dropped a kiss at the top of Frodo's spine. “T'ain't nothing.” he wrapped his arms around Frodo's front again, drawing him back and close for further cuddling. “And I mean that two ways. Not a trouble for me, and it don't look so bad at all. And-” he ducked his head, “well, I'm thinking I'm the only one like as not to see it, if you understand me.”

Thought and talk of his wounds had brought a sense of weariness over Frodo, but he managed still a laugh, and tangled a hand affectionately in Sam's hair. He stopped for as long as a breath as his fingers ran over the scar Sam bore from Moria, and what tension he'd gathered in himself, he let go. “Yes,” he said after a moment, a smile following after his words, “yes, I should think only you.”

Sam nosed Frodo's neck and shoulder with an approving noise. “I'm hoping only me.”

“Well, in cases like this,” Frodo tilted his head to give Sam more access to the part of his neck he'd begun to kiss, “where I'm naked and being loved on so sweetly by someone, it will be only you.”

Sam's kisses ran up to, and stopped, at Frodo's temple. “I love you,” he murmured.

Frodo rested his head against Sam's. “I love you as well.”

They stayed there briefly, resting against one another, before Sam reached again for the soap, and began to lather Frodo's front – rather with more incentive behind it than he'd washed Frodo's hair or back. “Thought about how much I'd like to do this the whole time on the Road,” Sam's hands were working the muscles of Frodo's chest firmly, and paying significant thought to his nipples by rubbing and pinching them.

“Oh?” Frodo found it increasingly difficult to breathe normally, as Sam's hands wandered repeatedly over such sensitive places.

“Aye; just a bath, to see you all clean and pink again, after we'd been traveling for so long.” One hand wandered down over Frodo's stomach.

“I might well be red, now,” Frodo remarked, feeling very hot indeed – all over, in fact, from his cheeks to what was rapidly hardening between his legs, “I hope that's all right-”

“Aye,” Sam agreed, his lower hand disappearing for a moment, to return laden with more soap, “as long as you're all right, being so red.”

“Yes,” Frodo was beginning to squirm with pleasure, as Sam's soap-slicked hand slid down beyond his navel, “oh- _yes,_ so long as- you don't stop-” Sam did not, taking his turgid flesh firmly in hand, while the other stayed at his chest, rubbing or pinching each nipple intermittently, while he dusted kisses and little love bites across his neck.

Finally in private seclusion with his Sam – where they were safe, and would be disturbed by no one – Frodo allowed his cries to echo through the washroom unrestrained, moaning and calling Sam's name louder with each rhythmic stroke of his hand. In time, Frodo realized Sam's own desire was burning against his back – naturally, for the closeness of their hips – and Sam was more carefully disguising his exclamations into Frodo's neck, as they began to rock as best they could together in the tub.

Fleeting thoughts of delight swirled through Frodo's head, at how much he had missed this ability to give himself completely to pleasure, at Sam's hand.

Too many nights had been spent in fervent haste and worry – for fear of discovery by Gollum or some other unwelcome creature. Now, to know that would never again be something they need fear, felt to Frodo as though burdensome bonds he'd been unaware of before, binding him to a point of near-suffocation, were suddenly cut all at once.

Not to mention, to know he was still desired – even after the wounds imparted from tooth and blade, (what he felt) a great failing, and weeks of travel and hunger only recently ended... it felt almost dichotomous, that after all he should be looked upon so with carnal want – to him, it did made little and less sense. He didn't much think of sense, however, when Sam was making him feel as he was at that moment – adored and wanted as a lover, and someone's dearest-loved treasure. He felt undeserving, but more grateful than he could ever say.

When Sam no longer could muffle his cries into Frodo's neck, he tilted his head back and veritably wailed, but on the way past his ear, Frodo heard him breathe – shakily, with great effort, “ _Love you_.”

Moments before Frodo felt a stream of something warmer than the water along his back, Sam's hand tightened around him almost painfully, and he jerked forward with the loudest cry of all – Frodo's name. Frodo came moments after, his back arched like a taut bow and his head thrown upon Sam's shoulder as he shuddered and spilled, feeling in the pleasurable waves that then flowed through him, that he could float away for his delight and happiness.

They lay slumped back in the tub for a long while, panting as they reveled in the last aftershocks of their pleasure. Slowly, as if waking from a doze, Sam re-adjusted his hug around Frodo's middle, resettling him closer and tighter, and began a lazy string of kisses up Frodo's neck, and to his mouth. Frodo tilted his head to reciprocate, melting into the kiss. They were still here; together, safe, and happy.

When they parted, Frodo breathed a sudden laugh, a joyous tear on his lashes. “We can go home,” he spoke faintly, as if admitting it aloud might make it come untrue, “together.”

Sam lovingly – and so, gently – butted his head against Frodo's, and they nuzzled prior to another kiss. “Aye; home, and together. Always.”


End file.
